Education has been a key process in the maintenance and development of every civilized society. In the 20 century, the development of methods and technology for remote education has become increasingly important. Distance learning using communication by mail has become a popular method of education which is of particular interest to those who are employed and do not have time for a full time education at a college. Broadcasting of educational material by radio or television at a predetermined time is another way in which educational material method. Another remote education method uses video media. It is also known to have a video conferencing system, in which a teacher and a student view each other via a video link. In one system, educational material is distributed through a general network. In this network a dedicated videophone system and a whiteboard system, which can share data via computers, are linked via a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN).
The above-described conventional remote education methods generally cause users to be restricted by time and/or location. It can be difficult to increase the number of users and prepare a variety of flexible educational contents.
With the increasing use of the Internet, remote learning systems have been developed which enable people to access educational courses from anywhere in the world, at any time, by using e.g. a browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer (Trade Mark). An educational establishment hosts a site with one or more educational courses, and users who are registered may log on to the site and access the appropriate course. This type of system is often referred to as “e-Learning”. In the last few years, computer systems that enable the delivery, management, and administration of enterprise-wide learning, known as Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become increasingly popular. Learning Management Systems are suites of tools that deliver the proper course or content to the students, at the proper time, in the proper format. An LMS typically provides registration capabilities for all types of learning events, student home pages, automated course catalogues, classroom resource management, skills management, records and content keeping, and delivery of e-Learning courses. Marc J. Rosenberg describes a detailed definition in prior art of the core capabilities of an LMS, in E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age, McGraw-Hill Books, 2001 pp162. First, by this definition, the LMS may have a common online course catalogue, a common online registration system and an up-front competency assessment tool. The LMS may have the ability to launch and track e-Learning and perform e-Learning assessments and perform management of learning materials. After integrating knowledge management resources the LMS may perform customized reporting, support collaboration and knowledge communities and integrate the information into the respective system, e.g. a human resources system used in the management of an organisation.
In a conventional Learning Management System, the educational content is provided by a content developer and integrated into the LMS. For example, the information may be supplied by the content provider on one or more CD's or other media, and copied into the LMS system. A student interfaces with the LMS and the content is provided to the student by the LMS. This imposes limitations. The computing and network demands on the system will limit the number of users and the number of courses that can be accessed. There will also be problems if the content varies frequently, and this will be a particular problem if this type of system is used not only for education but also for accessing financial data or constantly changing databases of information.
Various learning systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,727,950; 5,802,506; 6,029,156; 6,032,141; 6,067,537; 6,073,841; 6,116,652; 6,135,776; 6,141,529; 6,148,174; and 6,201,948.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,441 shows a learning system in which users connect with a server via a school intranet or via the Internet. The server hosts a number of modules concerned with lesson management and content. All communications with a user are channeled through the server. U.S. Pat. No. 6,190,178 discloses an Internet based learning management system. A user with a PC connects through the Internet to a server. The server includes a network connector, a controller, a remote education execution unit, a database management unit and a database. All communications with the user are directed through the controller and the server's network connector. The controller deals only with the local components in the server, namely the remote education execution unit, database management unit and database.